journal features

no wind like a side wind

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2012.04.09

Had a grueling trek to the office this morning, it took fully ten minutes longer—all due to some wind.

I find an uneven side wind a good deal harder to deal with than a steady headwind, when cycling. The route I cycle is largely lined with streetcar tracks, and with parked cars and frequent patches of construction one is routinely forced to their edge. With a side wind in the mix, fun wow. Plus there's all the dust and grit. And the pedestrians being blown into your path.

Ugh. But as one of my young coworkers cheekily suggested, it's a better workout. Mrmble mumble twenty-somethings...

rand()m quote

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

—John Gardner